The Best Restaurants for Business Lunch in London

Capital A List Gold Membership includes access to exclusive clubs and bars, and priority restaurant bookings in addition to many other benefits. For more information please visit Capital A List Membership.

London is home to exquisite restaurants typifying the stylish and modern flair of the city. With a backdrop of sophisticated décor and high-quality cuisine, many London restaurants are revered as ideal places outside of the office to entertain clients, to close business deals and to have intimate meetings covering important business decisions. Capital A List is your guide to the best restaurants for business lunch in London.

Galvin La Chapelle has a prime city location just off Bishopsgate, and is one of the best restaurants for business and entertaining clients. It is the third restaurant opened by Chris and Jeff Galvin, following the success of Galvin Bistrot de Luxe and Galvin At Windows.

Galvin La Chapelle is lavishly designed inside a Grade II converted Victorian chapel. Its interior décor matches its grand exterior with its high-vaulted ceilings and wall arches, as well as its spacious and open floor design. Its opulent design aesthetic is injected with elements of modernity seen in its glass enclosed seating area raised above of the rest of the dining space, an ideal restaurant to have a business meeting in London.

The seamless juxtaposition between traditional and new luxury is also carried through in its contemporary French cuisine that has earned Galvin La Chapelle a Michelin Star. Highlights on the menu include its signature lasagne of Dorset crab with creamy beure blanc and pea shoots, as well as the wild sea bass served with cockles, sea beets and oyster.

Galvin La Chapelle offers businesses the best location for business and to inspire and impress clients with rich and opulent French cuisine and interior design.

City Social, located in the heart of London’s financial district and on the 24th floor of the iconic skyscraper Tower 42, can be classified as one of London’s best restaurants for business lunches, meetings and dinners. Its sleek and professional décor inspired by art deco is complemented by the clean finishing of wall-to-ceiling windows showcasing panorama views of London’s landmark skyscrapers, including the iconic Gherkin and Heron Tower. The best seats are against the windows with deep and curved leather booths creating private and quiet corners for intimate business meetings. City Social also has two private dining areas with their own private entrances allowing business clientèle private rooms to discreetly celebrate their successes or to host corporate events.

The head Chef, Paul Walsh has worked closely with the Michelin star chef, Jason Atherton to curate creative yet simple dishes showing the finer-side to English cuisine. On the menu includes the traditional English Shepard’s pie, cooked salmon fillet lightly poached and served with a salad of fennel and celeriac and rich Lobster accompanied by chips cooked in duck fat and garnished with tomato puree.

With the backdrop of the stunning city skyline, and equally fantastic dishes, City Social offers a location suited to both quick business lunches and dinners, as well as luxurious spaces for more formal business events.

Take a glass elevator to the 38th and 39th floor of Heron Tower, and you will find yourself walking into the natural oasis of Sushisamba. Sushisamba embraces an earth-to-sky motif adeptly captivated in its 360-degree panoramic views of London, and bamboo latticed ceiling draped with hanging lights and living plants and flowers.

Sushisamba is iconic for its intercontinental fusion of Japanese, Brazilian and Peruvian cuisine, design and music. With a trio of appetisers, guests can experience Peru with the proffers cancha seviche, a collection of crunchy corn kernals dipped in a sharp citrus-based dressing. The Brazilian influence is seen in the fish taquitos, and lastly Japan is represented in the green bean tempura spears with a pot of black truffle aioli.

Sushisamba has recently reintroduced their Omakase menu, making it one of the best restaurants for business lunches. This is a set menu including crispy yellowtail taquitos, sea bass tempura and wagy gyoza with smoked emulsion and heritage carrots. The menu is ideal for business clientèle that wish to have a quick meal in a stunning environment, as it is based on the Japanese tradition of letting the chef select your order. For big business functions, large platters at £45 each can be ordered and feature five different meats, including grilled hanger steak, rib-eye, pork tenderloin and chorizo and linguica served with chimichurri.

With the interior reminiscent of a greenhouse adorned in living foliage, and a sophisticated ambience evoked by artwork inspired by the 20th century, Sushisamba is the best restaurant for any business occasion.

After 21 years of serving high-quality cuisine and earning two Michelin stars for 15 consecutive years, The Square in Mayfair is considered a must have in any business diary. It all started with Phillip Howards, co-owner of the popular The Ledbury and Kitchen W8 in Kensington, and the humble idea to merge seasonal produce with modern French cooking techniques.

The Square is no stranger to the tides of change, and recently re-opened under the umbrella of MARC, a restaurant group which includes the two Michelin star The Greenhouse, and the Private Members’ Club, Morton’s. The Square has always been sleek and sophisticated, but with its recent refurbishment reflected in its large-scale modern paintings and leather banquettes, it has only elevated its interior design to incorporate modern and minimalistic elements suited to low-key business meetings and lunches in London.

Lunch dining is one of the main priorities at the Square, owing to its central location to business clientèle, and is expedited in the form of two set menus including a three-course meal and six-course tasting menu reasonably priced at £37 and £60 respectively. Courtesy of Head Chef, Clement Leroy, the simplistic and light features in the décor are complemented beautifully with the contemporary French cuisine. The crisp violet artichoke served with confit quail egg and parmesan ice cream, and roasted veal sweetbread with squid, black truffle and pomelo are two highlights on the set menus.

The no-fuss interior design and atmosphere, coupled with a central Mayfair location and straightforward set lunch menus, prove why The Square is and will always be one of the best restaurants for business lunch in London.

For a taste of Hollywood standard cuisine, there is no better location than Cut, located at 42 Park Lane. Cut is one of 20 fine dining restaurants opened by the celebrity chef, Wolfgang Puck, best known as the talent behind the feasts at the past 23 Oscar Award ceremonies.

Cut is an elegant destination for business, and delivers Hollywood glamour in its plush leather sofas, marble flooring and high-raised ceilings. It softens the dark interior with wooden panelling and slatted windows bringing in beautiful views of Hyde Park and much needed light into the rooms. It has luxurious table arrangements and semi-private booths, suited to the needs of an exclusive business clientèle, including Michael Morley, head of wealth management UK at Deutsche Bank.

Cut is an American-styled steakhouse, and each of the starters, side dishes and sauces cluster around steak as the main focus. Guests can expect to spend between £40 – £190, and can select tasting plates of American, British and Australian sirloin, as well as Shanghai lobster infused with Asian spices and a classic and rich Japanese wagyu steak.

Cut’s prime location in Hyde Park, and its sophisticated and Hollywood inspired cuisine and interior have catapulted this restaurant onto our list of the best restaurants for business lunch in London.

Step back into time and enter one of the grand cafés of old Europe at The Delaunay in Covent Gardens. This up-scale café is the creation of Chris Corbin and Jeremy Kings, following the success of the Wolseley; a similarly inspired European café located in the heart of London.

The opulence featured in classic European style is echoed in The Delaunay’s mix of green leather banquette seating, dark wood panelling, black and white marble floors and antique mirrors. The table arrangements are spaciously divided among the restaurant creating a classy and comfortable environment for business.

The Delaunay is divided into a café, bar area, main dining room and also has a counter serving savouries, cakes, coffees and takeaways. Each room, as well as the menus have been especially designed to allow for all-day dining. On the menu, guests can select from a variety of European-inspired dishes, with breakfast options including the Viennese with a spread of smoked ham, salami, gouda, boiled egg and rye bread, and the Viennoiserie with strawberries and cream doughnut. Lunch and dinner dishes include four different types of schnitzel, five types of wurstchen, as well as an array of Crustacea dishes.

The Delaunay is a place where guests can experience elegant surroundings, and excellent food at any time of the day, and for this reason it is classified as one London’s best restaurants for client meetings, be it for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

With over a century of experience, Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill is one of our top picks for the best restaurants for business lunches and dinners in London. It first opened in 1916, and is still located in the very same old Victorian building in Mayfair, just off Regent street. It has become a favourite of Linda Jackson, the CEO of Citroen, and with its interior and cuisine remaining as sophisticated and polished as ever, it is not difficult to understand her choice.

The atmosphere is classic and celebratory, and is encapsulated perfectly at the original marble oyster bar where oysters are shucked with theatrical speed. Oysters are inherently a must have, whether it be freshly shucked, cooked Vietnamese-style or garlic baked. Oysters start from £2.50, and are recommended to be followed by a classic combination of battered and fried fish and chips. For guests looking for a richer and more refined dish, there is also a selection of caviar dishes to choose from, as well as the perfectly grilled langoustines and scallops served with a plate of broad beans, crispy pork, parma ham, toasted cashew nuts and blood orange.

Two private dining rooms, seating between 14 – 60 people are also available for private events, and serve as another important reason for why Bentley’s Oyster Bar &Grill is one of the best restaurants for business lunches and dinners in London.

With an iconic South Bank location overlooking St Paul’s Cathedral and the Thames river, OXO Towers is on the list for the best restaurants for business lunch in London. Its stunning city views are only enhanced by the vibrant live Jazz and piano performances, that can be enjoyed both inside the restaurant and outside on its 250-foot terrace.

For quick business lunches and meetings, OXO Tower accommodates with an express lunch menu for as little as £18, available from Sunday – Friday. Into the evening, guests can opt for a tasting menu, priced between £85 – £130, including six courses and a paired glass of wine, expertly selected from their list of over 800 wines. Whether it be a business lunch or dinner, OXO Tower delivers the same level of exquisite cuisine, incorporating delicacies from all across the globe. The Scottish scallops and Chateubriand steak and a Korean-style roast duck leg with spring onion pancake and kimchi are two highlights.

Located in the converted Grade II-listed Westminster Library, is one of London’s most popular and grand restaurants, The Cinnamon Club. It’s old-school members’ club atmosphere, evoked in the bookshelves lining the main dining room as well as upstairs gallery, is one of the iconic features making The Cinnamon Club one of the best restaurants for business lunch in London. The intimate lighting, dark wood panelling and spacious table arrangements add an additional layer of sophistication to the formal dining space, creating the ideal environment for business.

The uniqueness of the interior décor is complemented by innovative and nouvelle Indian cuisine that focuses on game and fish-based dishes. With a team of 18 chefs, headed by Vivek Singh, the dishes are layered with complex and intricate flavour profiles and stunning presentation, which ultimately justifies the premium price of about £75 per meal. The Cinnamon Club delivers on its promise of curating imaginative dishes with its tender milkfed lamb, which is exclusive to the restaurant. It also displays a knack for re-inventing classic Indian cuisine with its popular tandoori wild Spencer Gulf king prawn dish flavoured with coconut ginger sauce, and also in its Old-Delhi-style butter chicken on the bone.

The Cinnamon Club also prepares feasting plates, making it one of the best restaurants for business lunch in London on a larger scale. At the table, guests are presented with a whole rack of Romney Marsh Lamb which is carved and served table-side. The Cinnamon Club is also an expert with mixology, and with its three-tiered walnut gin trolley, formal business dinners can become more fun with a cocktail or two.

Located in the converted terrace space of The Bloomsbury Hotel, is the elegant and poetic Dalloway Terrace. It is one of the best restaurants for business lunches in London, with its secluded and intimate location hidden behind a line of hedging and just minutes from the bustling Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. It is a perfect and cosy indoor-outdoor terrace space, offering a calm oasis, with intimate candlelit rooms decorated with foliage climbing the walls and hanging from the ceilings.

The menu has been devised by head chef, Hans Louis, and offers plenty of British favourites including fish and chips and rabbit stew. The food is simple, yet decadent in flavours and presentation, with daily specials including crayfish mac and cheese and grilled poussin. Other highlights on the menu include the Dublin Bay prawn cocktail with Marie sauce, as well as other fish options including a plate of seared tuna with soy and ginger dressing.

Dalloway Terrace also has a wide selection of meat and vegetarian options seen in its European steak tartar, Aberdeen Angus dry-aged beef and classic burger and club sandwiches.

Dalloway Terrace offers all-day dining, located in a secluded secret garden terrace. It is one of London’s best kept secrets, and offers its clients an intimate and quite break away from the office, making it one of the best restaurants for business lunch in London including meetings and dinners.

London has a plethora of restaurants perfectly suited to business needs encompassing sleek and elegant interior design, private and intimate dining spaces, and complemented perfectly with sophisticated, and world-class cuisine. Here we have delineated the top restaurants in London, that are the best for business, be it for a quick morning business meeting, or a longer business meeting, lunch or dinner.

If you have a specific exclusive London club, bar or restaurant related project or event that you would like to talk about, please get in touch by filling in the form below and we will get back to you promptly. For those wanting instant contact please call us on 02072052245.

Also if you have some feedback on the site or just want to find out more about Capital A List or any of the venues we work with feel free to send us a message.